New details emerge about teen accused of firing shot outside Coronado Mall
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – One of the big questions police are still working to answer is how did 15-year-old Isaiah Montoya get a gun?
Montoya’s mom and step-dad have publicly said they have no idea where he got the gun, but claim he had to defend himself from school bullies.
Police talked about those claims in their news conference Tuesday.
Investigators say it started when Montoya and another teen got into a fight with another pair of teens at Coronado Center Friday.
At one point, surveillance video shows all four of them running through the mall.
Montoya is seen running out of the mall. Just a few moments later, a shot is fired and crowds of people start running.
No one was hurt. Montoya turned himself into police two days later.
A rep for Albuquerque Police Department told KOB 4 Tuesday, when police saw Montoya in the surveillance photos from the mall, they recognized him. That’s because they’ve met him before after responding to his home for a domestic violence call.
“This incident shook this community to its very core,” said APD Chief Harold Medina on Tuesday.
Newly-released video showed Montoya by the mall’s glass doors, apparently trying to get the other teen to take it outside.
Then, another teen approaches, and that’s when police say Montoya fired a shot outside, hitting the Coronado Mall sign.
“It’s disappointing that the behavior of a few individuals could shed such a negative cloud on our city, and all the work that’s been done within Albuquerque,” said APD Chief Harold Medina.
Montoya’s mom and step-dad have publicly said he deals with violence at school in the form of bullying. But a police report shows there were allegations of violence in the family’s home as well.
This past August, a woman called 911 saying her husband got angry at her teenage son, and punched and strangled him.
The report shows she thought her husband was going to kill him if she hadn’t stepped in.
Police say the photographs of the teen’s injuries helped them identify the suspect in these photos.
Police say the man accused is not charged. That’s because his wife never followed through on taking the teen to be interviewed. She told them they fixed things.
There is no indication of how Montoya got a gun. Police say even if he was being bullied, that’s still no reason for him or any teen to have a gun.
MORE: